Strikeforce - Fedor vs Rogers

I've still somewhat recently gotten in to MMA. So recent that I had never seen Fedor Emelianenko fight during a live broadcast. I'm not a fan of watching things on my computer but I watched his fight against Andrei Arlovski a few days ago as the hype for the fight started growing. I had seen 22 seconds of Brett Rogers on Showtime once before in his impressive knock out of Arlovski. So that's the extent of my prep going in to watching the CBS card but here's my thoughts anyway:

Antonio Silva vs Fabricio Werdum
The first round was good. Silva landed some good hands and seemed to be pushing for a 1st round finish. Werdum survived the first and it was easy to see why Silva was looking to end it early. Both fighters started gradually getting tired. Silva's punches seemed to be taking longer to get going. The second and third round were lackluster but Werdum was the less tired of the two and did better work in the last ten minutes to get the unanimous decision.

Gegard Mousasi vs Sokoudjou
This was a non-title fight and based on what I read was supposed to be an easy fight for Mousasi and just a way for Strikeforce to showcase one of their better talents. Sokoudjou was a little more than game in the first round looking quick and explosive. The 2nd round was a different story as Sokoudjou gassed and Mousasi finished the fight by TKO.
Jason Miller vs Jake Shields
I'll skip Miller's introduction and just do the fight. A lot of people were less than impressed by the fight as a whole but I think it got a raw deal. I kind of enjoyed it. Shields isn't known to be a guy who puts on exciting fights. I'm sure this wasn't Miller's game plan, but the fight was spent primarily on the ground. It's a testament to Miller not getting submitted and actually almost winning the fight with a deep rear naked choke in one of the middle rounds. Shields needed to be saved by the bell. It wouldn't be outlandish to think that 5 or 6 more seconds and Shields would have been sleeping. Not unlike UFC's Machida/Rua fight, I think the announcers made this fight seem closer than it was since Miller was the "media darling" but the fact of the matter is that Shields dominated the fight as Miller just fought not to get caught in a submission. Shields in a unanimous decision.

Brett Rogers vs Fedor Emelianenko
Between asking people and reading previews of this fight, the popular opinion on Rogers' chances in the fight were that he had a "punchers chance." To me that means that he's a powerful guy so if he can land a lucky punch than anything is possible. So as the fight started and Rogers landed a jab that appeared to break Fedor's nose you may have had hope that an upset was brewing. Rogers did a great job of landing some punches and actually doing some work on the ground which alot of people were skeptical of his skills. Not only did Rogers last Round 1, he probably won it. Round 2 is where you could see that this fight wasn't going to last through a Championship 5th round. Rogers started to slow up and he got caught with a nasty right to the jaw that floored him. Fedor pounced and the ref stopped the fight. The legend continues.

Overall I thought it was a good two hours of fights. Especially for free. One thing I hope doesn't happen is a Fedor/Werdum fight. That would not be appointment viewing for me. I could get up for the Rogers fight primarily because it was the first time I'd see Fedor fight live. Next time they have to throw an opponent I can get excited about.